2:45
pm: HS upgrades ... As
you can see, the move to the new server gave me an excuse
to create a new and, I hope, improved layout for the
web pages. It would have been nice to have it all ready
and complete but the site has gotten too big for that.
Most of the pages are still a mix of old and new styles.
(See Near
Space and TVRO
for where I'm headed.)

So
please bear with me over the coming weeks as I update
the pages and continue to experiment with menus, color
schemes, and the organization of the pages, subsections,
and link lists. I hope to make the site easier to navigate
and also less amateurish looking. Until now I have focused
primarily on expanding content but to grow my readership
I need to make the site more inviting to newcomers.

My
new host also provides weblog software. Plan A is to
have "real" blogs in action within a couple
of days. The database archiving and browser interface
will make it a lot easier for me to maintain RLV
News and this HobbySpace Log. The
name for the latter has become Space for All
to reflect more clearly what it is about. I will also
gradually transition RLV News name to Space
Transport News since a true spaceship is inherently
reusable just like an airliner and we don't call the
latter reusable takeoff vehicles.

My
primary goal remains that of convincing more people
to become involved in space related activities. I firmly
believe that the only way to build a large and vibrant
community of space enthusiasts is get more and more
people to participant in those space hobbies and activities
that appeal to their individual interests and can sustain
lifelong devotion.

Bringing
together all of these people
with their diversity of interests under a single big
tent (or "habitat") in support of progress
in space would provide a much larger and more effective
constituency to help make space development happen than
just the limited space activist community.

At
the same time as I try to appeal to the general public,
I also want to provide a source of news and information
on the growing entrepreneurial space industry (i.e.
the so-called alt.space or alternative-space
world.) It is this industry that will provide the means
by which the general public can actually go to space
or, at least, become far more directly involved with
it.

Many
people involved in the alt.space movement, or who follow
it closely, are definitely not hobbyists but serious
engineers and technical folk. So it's a bit ironic that
RLV
News became
my most popular page. I think, though, that most of
the alt.space participants understand that attracting
more of the general public to become involved in space
activities is important for building and sustaining
a market for the alt.space industry.

September.2.2005

5:35
pm: HS Outage ... I
plan to move HobbySpace.com to a new
hosting service this weekend. So you may find it unavailable during
the transition, which I'm told can take up to 24 hours. I hope things
will be back to normal by Tuesday morning.

11:10
am: Space mitigating earthly disasters ...
As I mentioned yesterday, satellite phones are especially useful
for emergency situations like that caused by Katrina when cell phones
and other communications systems either fail or are unreliable.
Satphones should be stocked as standard emergency equipment for
police, fire, and rescue personnel.

Space systems
help to mitigate disasters in other ways too. For hurricanes, the
most obvious benefit of our space resources comes from
weather satellites, which track the storms and usually provide
sufficient warning time for people to evacuate or to seek local
refuge. Since they first began flying in the 1960s, weather satellites
must surely have saved tens of thousands of lives.

High resolution
satellite images help in assessing the damage wrought by a disaster.
They also are used to monitor how a situation develops over time
such as, for example, showing how the extent of flooding varies.
Satellite images will be quite useful for governments in developing
reconstruction plans.

You can check
out some satellite images of the areas impacted by Katrina at: